The Blue Banded Bee

Amegilla (Zonameilla) cingulata

The Blue Banded Bee is about 11mm long and has a band of iridescent blue fur across their black abdomen. They like to build their nests in a shallow burrow in clay soil or sometimes in mud bricks all throughout Australia!

Pollination Specialty?

A Blue Banded Bee buzz pollinates in a different way to other native bees as they head bang! a BB Bee will bang their head on the anther of a flower 320 times per second to release the pollen in those flowers that are playing hard to get.

Some fun facts

• Blue Banded Bees are solitary bees. This means that each female bee mates and then builds a solitary nest by herself! Meanwhile male blue-banded bees roost together in small groups at night, out in the open, hanging onto twigs or stems with their mandibles.

The Blue Banded Bee was the first Australian Native Bee to feature as an enamel pin in the Bees Please MBD shop! Click here to have a look.

Thanks to @onephatasian and @hirenkadikar